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Local Natural Resource Dependency in a Swedish Boreal Municipality Context

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Local Natural Resource Dependency in a Swedish Boreal Municipality Context Local Natural Resource Dependency in a Swedish Boreal Municipality Context Camilla Thellbro Faculty of Forest Sciences Department of Forest Resource Management and Geomatics Umeå Licentiate thesis Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Umeå 2006 Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Department of Forest Resource Management and Geomatics Report 19 2006 ISSN 1401-0070 ISBN 91-576-7158-3 © 2006 Camilla Thellbro, Umeå Tryck: Arkitektkopia, Umeå 2006 Abstract Thellbro, C. 2006. Local Natural Resource Dependency in a Swedish Boreal Municipality Context . Licentiate dissertation. ISBN 91-576-7158-3, ISSN 1401-0070, ISRN SLU-SRG--R--19--SE Since every society depends on a society specific “natural resource field”, natural resource utilization within a society strongly influences socio-economic development. Natural and socio-economic sustainability originates in the local level, which in a Swedish context can be regarded as municipality level. Important natural resource users are local commercial activities, due to their central role in local socio-economy. In this thesis the local natural resource dependent society is a Swedish boreal municipality. The hypothesis is that its natural resource dependency is deeply rooted in the local culture and still of crucial socio-economic importance, but that understanding regarding this must be improved. Thus local natural resource (LNR) dependency and its impacts on local commercial activities is quantified, characterised and displayed, and further discussed in a socio-economic context. Data were collected among local commercial activities, represented by unique workplaces (UWps) within the municipality of Vilhelmina, through a telephone supported questionnaire. Half of the number of municipality UWps was addressed of which 46.5% responded. Results reveal that 80% of the UWps are highly LNR dependent. They offer engagement opportunities corresponding to 1 900 people and 40% of them are all-year, full- time engagements. Business establishment within Vilhelmina is associated with personal municipality connections or municipality qualities and geographical locations of all types of businesses is scattered across and outside of the municipality. Eighty per cent has been located within Vilhelmina for more than a decade and are likely to stay in business. Markets of UWps are mainly local. Cluster analysis identified LNR/LNR access dependency profiles, which show unique dependency patterns and differences in dominating business categories. Businesses, however, overlap profile boundaries and multiple businesses within UWps are reported in all profiles. Between profiles engagement opportunities per UWp vary from one to five. Results imply strong connections between LNR dependent small businesses, people involved and local social, cultural and economical structures. It is thus believed that LNR/LNR access dependency and commercial activities are deeply rooted in boreal municipality culture. To facilitate local as well as general positive development results hence confirm the need to quantify and characterize the LNR/LNR access dependency within a boreal municipality. Keywords: accessibility, ecological function, local government, rural resource community, small business, societal development, socio-economy, sustainability Author’s address: Camilla Thellbro. Department of Forest Resource Management and Geomatics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SE-90183 Umeå, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected] Contents Introduction, 7 Background summary, hypothesises, objectives and research design , 7 Nature as resource, 9 Defining natural resources, 9 Systematizing natural resources, 10 Regulating natural resources - property and accessibility, 12 The natural resource dependent society, 13 The local natural resource dependent society, 13 The municipality as the primary governmental level in Sweden, 14 The boreal municipality, 15 Small businesses and entrepreneurship, 16 The entrepreneurship life mode, 17 Non-industrial private forest owners as farmers and small business entrepreneurs, 17 Small business development, 18 Summary of the papers, 19 Materials and methods, 19 UWps, 20 Business categories, 21 LNRs and LNR and LNR access dependency, 21 Local commercial activity context, 21 LNR and LNR access dependency profiles, 22 Results, 22 Quantifying the extent of LNR and LNR access dependency, 22 Characterising and displaying LNR and LNR access dependency, 23 Discussion, 26 Findings in a local socio-economic context, 27 Concluding remarks, 30 Further research, 31 Acknowledgements, 32 References, 32 Appendix Papers I-II The present thesis is based upon following papers, which will be referred to by their Roman numerals: I. Thellbro, C. and Lidestav, G. Local Natural Assets Dependency, Commercial Activities, Establishment and Engagement in a Swedish Boreal Municipality. (Manuscript) II. Thellbro, C. and Lidestav, G. Profiling Commercial Activities Based on Local Natural Resource Dependency in a Swedish Boreal Municipality. (Manuscript) Research data The present thesis and the papers included are based upon data from the following questionnaire, which will be referred to by its capital letter: A. Thellbro, C. Your company – one part of the future in Vilhelmina municipality! (Translated from Swedish to English) Introduction Background summary, hypothesises, objectives and research design Every society, regardless of geographic level, depends on a society specific ‘natural resource field’ (Hettne, 1980; Eriksson et al., 1983). Structure and extent of such a field as well as access to the natural resources are, besides type and condition of nature, determined by for example cultural codes and property rights formed within and by a society (Månsson, 1993; Svedin, 1981). “Sustainable development” (Hägerhäll, 1988) is an overriding goal on different societal levels and a concept, which today includes both man and nature. Therefore, knowledge regarding the natural resource field and its utilisation is significant to any society and most certain to the local society, which can be seen as the primary level regarding natural resource utilisation and the base for sustainability from local to global level (Orr, 1995). Particularly suitable local societies, in the natural resource dependency perspective, are rural resource communities (cf. Reed, 2003), to which Swedish boreal municipalities belong. Within a society there are different actors utilising the natural resource field. Commercial activities are, however, central due to their socio-economic impacts on individuals as well as on society (Bergqvist, 2004; Taylor, Bryan & Goodrich, 2004). Commercial activities are, conversely, not explicitly linked to natural resource utilisation and/or dependency in official statistics ( e.g. Statistics Sweden, 2005), which provides data designed for, as an example, description and assessment of business activity on different societal levels. ‘Socio-economic impacts’ refers to social and economic impacts of products or service offerings, market interventions or other events on an economy as a whole and on companies, organizations and factors that influence how an intervention is likely to change a society. In specific cases it is necessary to identify the specific relevant socio-economic factors and to understand their status. Example of factors in the boreal municipality context are; prevailing economic conditions, the level of economic development, the relationship between government and judiciary, maturity and openness of markets, propensity for entrepreneurial activity and strength of tradition in terms of beliefs and behaviours 1 ( cf. http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Socio-economic; 24-Apr-2006). This brief background; comprising fundamentals that will be explicated and elaborated in the following sections, leads to the overall hypothesis in this thesis; the dependency on natural resources is vast but knowledge regarding extent and characteristics is limited on the local level. Conclusively there are significant questions to address regarding the extent and characteristics of commercial activity dependency on local natural resources (LNRs) and the access to them and, further, regarding the impacts this dependency imply on the local society. 1 Examples of studies explicitly dealing with socio-economic impacts in boreal areas – from a forestry perspective – are Hyttinen & Solberg (1996) and Lindgren et al. (2000). 7 Based on the background outlined and these questions the overall objective of this thesis is to examine LNRs in terms of dependency within commercial activities from the viewpoint that natural resources only can be described in relation to a specific society ( cf. Eriksson et al., 1983 p. 21). The case study specific society in this thesis is a Swedish boreal municipality 2 since the municipality, from a Swedish society development 3 perspective, is a suitable level and since the boreal municipality development through history is closely associated with natural resource utilisation. The specific hypothesis in this thesis is that the ‘natural resource field’ of a boreal municipality, in terms of LNR dependency within commercial activities, is extensive and varied seen from a contemporary as well as a historic perspective. Further, the suggestion is that deeper knowledge regarding LNR dependency will reveal circumstances and characteristics significant in a society development context. The specific objectives of this thesis are therefore to describe and assess societal LNR and LNR access dependency
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